The present invention relates to a passenger management system and more particularly, to a passenger management system for managing a position of a passenger in a building of an airport or the like by using a boarding card with a radio function.
In the airport, for example, boarding of a passenger is recognized with the passenger management system when the passenger inserts a boarding card through a device for boarding procedure after checking in. If boarding of a passanger can not be confirmed even after a closing time for boarding, then, an announcement is made inside the airport to urge the passanger to board.
However, the present position of the passenger is not known, and the passenger may not always hear the announcement, so that such an announcement is only a one-sided conveying means. For this reason, there is a need of a passenger management system which can surely convey a message to the passenger.
Recently, there has been proposed a technology in which plurality of antennas are distributed in the building of an airport and a position of a passenger is detected from waves transmitted from a boarding card as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. HEI 9-223253.
In the conventional type of passenger management system of the above Publication, the position of a not-boarded passenger is recognized according to strength of received waves by using the plurality of distributed antennas, so that the accurate strength of the waves may not be detected depending on where the antennas are located in the building, and for this reason it may be difficult to specify the position of the passenger. Especially, when departure time is approching, it is required to find out the not-boarded passenger as quickly as possible, and for this reason, appearance of a passenger management system for quickly finding out a not-boarded passenger is now desired.
Even when the position of the not-boarded passenger is detected in the above system, the announcement made at that position may not reach the passenger if there is a large error in the detected position.
It is an object of the present invention to provide, in order to solve the problems based on the conventional technology, a passenger management system which can quickly and accurately find out a position of a not-boarded passenger and further appropriately guide the passenger to the airplane.
With the present invention, in a boarding processing system with a plurality of tag readers located in a plurality of areas into which a premises of an airport is divided, if there is found any remarked boarding card with which the check-in has been finished but the boarding has not been confirmed, the tag readers are actuated and an area among the plurality of areas in which the remarked boarding card is present is determined according to the signal received by the tag readers, so that remarked boarding cards for each area can be checked, an with this operation, whereabouts of not-boarded passenger can quickly and accurately be found out independently for each area.
With the present invention, in a boarding processing system, a plurality of areas are discretely displayed on a display unit respectively, so that whereabouts of each not-boarded passenger can easily be recognized.
With the present invention, a switch for discretely displaying each result of determination on the plurality of areas is provided in a display unit, so that any required area can be specified with a switching operation, and with this operation, a status of each not-boarded passenger can be recognized only from the required area.
With the present invention, a switch of a display unit is based on a touch panel, so that a switching operation becomes easy, an with this operation, each not-boarded passenger can quickly be followed.
With the present invention, an information processing unit actuates, when actuating a plurality of tag readers, only a tag reader for the area for which a switch has been operated, so that whereabouts of remarked boarding cardcan be recognized for an arbitrary area, and with this operation, each not-boarded passenger can efficiently be followed.
With the present invention, an information processing unit stores a number of incidences of remarked boarding cards for each of a plurality of areas on a memory, so that the stored data can be managed as data to objectively determine in which area not-boarded passengers tend to linger about.
With the present invention, an information processing unit actuates, when actuating tag readers, the tag readers in a descending order from a tag reader having the highest-incidence area according to a number of incidences stored on a memory, so that the efficiency of finding out each not-boarded passenger at an early stage can be improved.
With the present invention, an information processing unit provides controls, when actuating a broadcasting unit, for broadcasting targeted only to the area for which a switch has been operated, so that broadcasting discretely to each area can be realized, and with this operation, it is possible to solve such inconvenience that the broadcasting does not reach or does not easily reach depending on places.
With the present invention, an information processing unit makes, when actuating a broadcasting unit, the unit broadcast to the areas in a descending order from the highest-incidence area according to the number of incidences stored on the memory, so that the message-transfer efficiency of finding out each not-boarded passenger at an early stage can be improved.
With the present invention, an information processing unit prepares a list of not-boarded passengers who have remarked boarding cards with which the check-in has been finished in a check-in processing system but the boarding has not been confirmed, and finds out a current position of any not-boarded passenger on the list for each area according to a result of determination by each tag reader, so that management of whereabouts of each not-boarded passenger can be centralized.
With the present invention, an information processing unit updates a list at prespecified time intervals, so that each not-boarded passenger can be followed, and with this operation, an updated whereabouts of each not-boarded passenger can be stored at any time.
With the present invention, in an boarding processing system with a plurality of tag readers located in a plurality of areas into which a premises of an airport is divided, the tag readers are actuated if there is found any remarked boarding card which has been issued but with which the boarding has not been confirmed, and an area among the plurality of areas in which the remarked boarding card is present is determined according to the signal received by the tag readers, so that remarked boarding cards can be checked for each area, and with this operation, whereabouts of not-boarded passenger can quickly and accurately be found out independently for each area.
Other objects and features of this invention will become clear from the following description with reference to the accompanying drawings.